Growing to your Maximum Potential; How?

many people that I've known didn't reach their true potential because they under estimate their own potential, as the result, the accept any decision about their performance as the best that they can do.

i have a story about how other people make your life stagnant and do not grow to your maximum potential. this story is for example only; the life of Epoi
When Epoi was 15, everyone told him that he would never get straight A's in PMR(our local exam) When he became 17, everyone told him that he won’t get excellent results in SPM and would never get a place in a college. When he reached 19, his friends told him that it’s almost impossible to find a good job. When he approached 21, his close friend told him that he will never be a millionaire and has to choose between his career and his hobby because no one can keep both together. And when he became 22 , another person told him that there is another thing that he cant do and when he became 23 the same happened, it kept happening as he kept growing.
Epoi now has very well defined limits for his, skills, abilities and potential. The only problem is that he never defined these limits; the people around him are the ones who defined them for him. His friends, His family and his colleagues limited his potential, by convincing him that he can’t do lots of things.

you can see, how many negative words use in the story, the words that actually make epoi didn't grow to reach his true potential.

I didn’t say that one person was bad enough to fill Epoi’s mind with all these false ideas, but what happened is, each person convinced him that he cannot do one thing And the result was thinking that he can’t do hundreds of things!!

Now you may be asking, what if those people were right?
What’s really funny is, when someone tells you that something is impossible, its usually because he couldn't do it himself. i got a lot of examples, but i know you can find them yourself. It goes like this, if someone failed to do something he will tell you that its impossible, And if someone was unhappy he will tell you that happiness is an illusion. Everyone talks about himself and thinks that its the real world. thats it!

So what im going to do? Stop letting people define your potential for you. you are the one that controll your ability not them. you can just ignore the words, or tell them that you believe can be better than them or just take their words as a challenge, thats what i always do.